Speaker
Description
Third-generation (3G) gravitational-wave (GW) detectors will usher GW science into the big-data era, with tens to hundreds of thousands of detections each year. At the same time, new detectors in different frequency bands are being considered. These will expand our observational reach and help us access new sources of GWs. In this talk, I will discuss the complementarity of ground-based detectors and the Lunar Gravitational-Wave Antenna (LGWA) deci-Hz observatory, with a focus on the multiband observation potential for binary black holes (BBHs).
I will present an assessment of the detectability for BBH populations consistent with the latest LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA reconstruction. LGWA alone could have observed more than one-third of the events detected through GWTC-4.0, and could detect 90 events per year merging in the ground-based band out to redshifts $z\sim3 - 5$. Current detectors at design sensitivity would yield one to a few hundred multiband counterparts with LGWA, while 3G detectors could observe most BBHs detected by LGWA that merge in their frequency band ($7 M_{\odot} \lesssim M_{\rm tot} \lesssim 600 M_{\odot}$), enabling systematic joint analyses of hundreds of events.
The short time to merger from the deci-Hz to Hz–kHz band (typically months to a year) enables early warning, targeted follow-up, and archival searches. I will highlight the promising case of intermediate-mass BBHs, presenting an injection study for a GW231123-like system that accumulates $\sim10^5$ inspiral cycles in LGWA.